Few options for Obama on 9/11

Every year it’s a challenge for the White House: how to commemorate the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. This year is especially awkward, given the controversy around President Barack Obama’s remarks in support of an Islamic cultural center and mosque planned for a neighborhood near ground zero in lower Manhattan.

The White House has not yet announced the president’s plans for next week, though a source familiar with the matter was doubtful Obama would travel to New York.

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But the president’s options are otherwise limited: Last year, he marked the eighth anniversary of the terrorist attacks at the Pentagon, and a return appearance there seems unlikely. This year, first lady Michelle Obama and former first lady Laura Bush will travel together to Shanksville, Pa., to honor the 40 passengers and crew members who died in the crash of United Airlines Flight 93.

That leaves the former World Trade Center site in New York, where Obama hasn’t been since the 2008 presidential campaign. But a presidential appearance at ground zero on Sept. 11 — where an activist group plans to protest the Islamic center project that day — will almost certainly reignite the political firestorm.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.) said he hopes Obama chooses an “appropriate location” to honor the victims, though it “doesn’t have to be a place where the attacks occurred.”

“That’s up to the president,” King told POLITICO. “I don’t want to turn this into a political jousting match.”

Last month, the Park51 project — which would convert an empty building two blocks north of ground zero into a cultural center for Muslims, including a mosque — sharply divided those who had no objection and those who were offended by it, including families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11. But the discussion reached a new level of intensity when Obama said in a speech that the project’s backers have the constitutional right to build it.

While it isn’t as heated as it was two weeks ago, the debate over what’s become known as the “ground zero mosque” is still raw. The right-wing group Stop the Islamization of America has organized an afternoon rally against the project on the Sept. 11 anniversary; speakers include former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton and family members of those killed in the attacks.

“I hope that any demonstration is a silent protest,” said King, who was invited to the rally but will spend the anniversary in his district. “It’s almost a holy day.”